


Wildest wind

by hauntedpoem



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alqualondë, Evil babies - Freeform, Fourth Age, M/M, Other, Reborn Elves, Writer, but he's no elf, creepy elfling Mairon, my tags are a mess, oh... this will be slash, rebodied Sauron, reborn maiar, storyteller Legolas, telerin elves - Freeform, wanderer Legolas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:09:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8771329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedpoem/pseuds/hauntedpoem
Summary: What the powers decide is beyond anyone's understanding.The Fourth Age in Valinor proves to be peaceful and bountiful. Elves are redeemed and reborn, they prosper and write their own stories, filing eternity in thick library tomes and trying to figure out their reason for being. Far from the cities, on the shores of Alqualondë, a child is born. Or rather... reborn.But he is no elf, he is something else, something that shouldn't be.-this thing is being edited right now*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Umm... This was waiting patiently in one of my fiction folders. It practically wrote itself. I can't say much about this but I have more drafts written. I published this to ambition myself to finish it. Someday.

The waves come crashing gently onto the pebbled shore. They advance and retreat into a frothy lace, bringing with them small gems from the bowels of the sea. Legolas scans the sand for pearls and intricately sculpted seashells.

A pale crab scuttles under a coiled sheet of emerald seaweed, its blue eyes scanning the area from underneath it. Upon noticing the creature, Legolas preoccupies himself with looking for a shell suitable for the crustacean's small body. Clad only in his knee-high breeches, he walks barefoot along the shore, more resembling one of Ulmo's maiar than an elf. A necklace of white seashells embraces his long, tanned neck. On his sunburnt back, the blond hair rests like a heavy blanket. It's half doused in sea water, half tangled by the flighty breeze.

Legolas is fascinated by the sea.

There are times when he feels the pull of the fields and of the vast, cool, forests, evergreen and peaceful, yet most of the time he comes down among the sea elves of Alqualondë, hikes along the jagged rocks and cliffs and explores the lagoons and caves near the Oceanside. He is not interested in fishing but he does spend most of his time among the anglers and their hard working folk. They are mostly of Telerin descent. Quite a few of them are Vanyar. He has yet to see a Noldo walking these shores and fishing. Most Noldor seem stuck in libraries and the council room arguing about politics.

In a small pouch, Legolas gathers the most exquisite pieces. Nacreous lace and pink ribbed scallop shells that shine a blinding white in the hot sun, delicate oyster shells with tinges of grey and brown, gleaming like mithril, and never ending fragile spires that culminate in a sharp point - snail shells. These are spread in the palm of his hand and he marvels at the flawless creations into the minutest detail they present.They will be made into a fine necklace. He sometimes carves stone and recreates small pieces like these or makes inimitable trinkets for the high elves to put a smile on their face. He does it because it gives him pleasure.

Legolas, son of Thranduil of the Green Leaves Realm writes a good deal of the time but now that he has finished his most urgent tales, he spins stories of his own. He travels, barters, hunts and spreads his stories. At night, the elflings who gather on the beach around a large fire, ask him about his adventures from the land they never knew.

He is a good storyteller. Or so he is told by the elves from the settlements he visits during his commissions.

Most of his stories spread by word of mouth. It happens that they come to differ greatly from the originally written version. During the day, he teaches them archery. Most of the Telerin Elves, young and ancient alike, want to learn. Maidens and lads follow into his training without complaint. Some grew into adulthood with his dark stories of slaying spiders and orcs at Dol Guldur, and their imagination runs rampant, as they have never seen an orc or a giant spider before.

However, Legolas is patient and his crystalline voice and flawless elven memory create richly descriptive stories that feed the imagination of his listeners. Soon enough, some of them come up with drawings that are exact representations of the fell creatures that once roamed in Arda. Today, he isn’t bent on weaving stories and just wants to walk along the shore, his bright eyes examining the sand for shells.

He finds a piece of glass, so finely shaped by water that it resembles one of his father’s precious emeralds. An idea springs immediately to his mind. His footstep is lighter and his song soars into the marine breeze. Manwë’s gentle breeze catches into his wavy wheat-coloured hair and spreads it into the air. Legolas’ joy is both childlike and wise.

When he reaches the rocks, he carefully jumps from peak to peak until finally, he lands at his favourite spot. He watches the gulls nesting unbothered by his presence. It smells of fish and dried seaweed. Some hate this smell but Legolas is impartial to it. Climbing up towards the cliff, he senses someone approaching.

There's a woman. Her hair is the colour of ash wood and her eyes are as green as the first saplings of spring. She looks sad with her untamed hair spreading in cords about her as the wind suddenly catches intensity. Her face is not like that of the maidens of Tirion upon Túna, pale and translucent. She looks older, with creases around her eyes. Her face is tan and her lips are dry as if the water evaporated off her and only the bitter salt remained. Dressed in simple, loose garb and heavily pregnant, she notices Legolas climbing to meet her and takes a step back, looking confused and surprisingly, ashamed.

He smiles at her politely and issues a greeting in the common tongue. She answers back. Her voice is hoarse, tired, and Legolas can empathise with her. For all he knows, she could look just like his mother did right before giving birth to him. He does not remember his mother so he shuts up before saying something that would upset the woman.

“I swear that when I came here, I had a shirt on,” he jokes instead. “Got swept into the sea. A torn, threadbare thing it was.”

He smiles at her, all teeth and his eyes sparkle like gems from deep inside the mountains. Memories of Arda and what he's left behind are fleeting. He is now in Valinor, exploring endless shores. No spiders here. No orcs. No Dark Lord.

“I have seen men wearing less,” she replies unshaken and he can feel her tone becoming more self-assured. Despite her efforts, she still looks frail. It's the exhaustion, his mind supplies. He watches as her hands immediately curl around her swollen abdomen. The elleth appears to be in pain yet she doesn’t make a sound.

Legolas wishes he knew what to do. He has little practical knowledge pregnancies. He remembers Arwen Undómiel from hundreds of years ago, as she swelled with Aragorn’s child but she looked happy, radiant and knew she was blessed by Anor’s rays just for carrying the heir to the king of Gondor. This woman looks nothing like her. She looks as if she is carrying a huge burden.

“Twins?” he asks innocently, trying to somehow make her mind detach from the pain in her womb. He is a couple of steps away from her but barely overcomes the desire to take her in his arms protectively.

The woman shivers despite being wrapped in a pale grey shawl and carefully clothed in long, thick robes. It is strange because the air is hot and humid near the sea.

“No, just one.” She murmurs. “He’s big, grew fast and large, as you can see.” Her eyes point to the draped materials and her thin hand with greenish-blue veins parts the material to reveal a huge, distended belly. Her dress clings tightly to her middle.

“The healers say it will be a strong child but my husband is still worried for I have changed.” She takes a lock of hair to show him. The pale ash colour is just a trick of the light, Legolas notices up close. The woman’s hair used to be brown. Now it’s grey.

“Lightened by the sun, then?” He says hoping for a positive answer. She shakes her head, on her face, a grim expression. Of course, it wasn’t the sun.

“I just know he’s going to be reborn. That’s all I know,” she says in a whispery voice that mingles with the crashing of waves on the stones below, and Legolas finds the idea heartrending. He wants to say something to cheer her up. Surely, the one lying in her womb is a wonderful gift anyway, be it reembodied or not. A man comes running and shouting her name from over the hill. It’s getting windier, he realises.

“Thúriquessë!” he runs and runs and the wind gets more and more powerful.

Legolas tries to tame his hair as it becomes tangled and swept by the whirlwind and Thúriquessë gathers hers into her shawl. “Hurry, the storm’s coming,” she says to him protecting her eyes from the onslaught of dust and sand.

“I’m fine, husband,” she says when the man is close enough to hear her. She sounds breathless. Legolas has known him since he stepped foot on the shores of Aman. He later found out he was the son of one of his grandfather’s soldiers who was dies in the battle on the marshes. His wife embarked for Valinor while pregnant with their unborn child. Híthëlírë died without knowing whether they reached safety or not.

 Legolas smiles. “I salute you, Airehíthon!” He’s one of those that barter with him. A fisherman, a sea elf with flame red hair and stormy eyes.

“Aye, Ernilen Legolas! Good to see you! I was worried for my wife.” Still, on these shores, the elves that felt in the leat tied to his father’s kingdom would insist calling him a  _prince_. He grew tired correcting them and he accepts the honorific.

They follow the husband to their small cabin on the windy cliff and Legolas is surprised as the man lends him one of his tunics, rough linen yet warming and comfortable. The weather grew stormy to his surprise but quieted down when the wife entered the cabin to rest. It seemed bizarre but all that remained of the impending storm was a chill breeze that spread goose bumps all over Legolas’s bare arms.

“My wife is strained these days. I can only hope that she will get better after the child is born.” Legolas looks surprised for a moment, noticing how Airehíthon does not call the one to be born “their son”.

“We were worried at first. As the pregnancy advanced, my wife looked weaker and gaunter. Her hair… it was dark once, and now it’s white. She lost her strength. Sometimes she cries. She is so unhappy. I cannot do much. I wish I could take all her pain.” He looks at Legolas with weary eyes. His face is expressive, yet battered by the wind. He looks weakened all that's going on with his wife.

Indeed, he will, Legolas thinks and spends some time with the man, helping him untangle the fishing net, sharing news and giving comfort where he can.

Later that day, he brings furs and fabrics among which a long silk that’s a rare, dark blue, enough to rival the sky of Elentári. It’s Thúriquessë who opens the door. She bids him come in and when they reach the kitchen, she sits tiredly on a chair, clutching her belly.

Legolas insists on making her tea and she accepts, too weak to move around the house. As he puts the kettle on the stove, he starts weaving one of his stories. She listens carefully and somehow, her pains stop as if the unborn son is listening as well.

This time he talks about Galion and his wife and their numerous strings of daughters. And their hilarious recipes where the main ingredient was spider meat which remains inedible to this day. When he stops, the tea is steaming in two mugs. He gave back her husband’s tunic and donned one of his black leather doublets, his doeskin breeches and his well-worn boots. He brought his hunting bow as well and a dark pack from where he extracts a leather-bound tome and next, a few slices of smoked meat covered in dark paper.

“Here,” he says, placing the meat on a plate.

“You must be tired of all that fish.” Thúriquessë, her husband told him, did not have much of an appetite and most of the fish she ate, she threw up, followed by a violent kick in her belly from the baby. The unborn child seemed like quite a headache and Legolas wanted to help the family as much as he could, out of deep friendship for the Telerin mariner.

Something in Thúriquessë reminded him of his own mother. Strong, beautiful but taken too soon by dragon fire as she tried to protect him as an infant. Her king found what was left of her and grieved for months until he realised that he was left alone with a newborn elf to care for and a kingdom to rule. Somehow, Legolas feared that she too would follow in his mother’s fate, although in Valinor there were no specific dangers. At least, the stories kept the baby calm and Thúriquessë's tired voice went on and on until the pains ceased altogether.

At his departure, she grabbed his arm and looked him in the eye. Her own eyes were humid, brimming with unshed tears.

“Every night I dream of The Eye. It shows me unspeakable deeds until all I am left with is sorrow and despair. I wish to say farewell now, for I know I will not be around for longer. It’s always watching me, this thing inside my womb should not have been, I know! What reembodied creature will it be? I know not its face but I wish to never see it!”

Legolas’ eyes grew wide with panic. Surely, these are not the words a mother would say to an almost stranger. Surely… she must be in a bad disposition brought on by the unusual pregnancy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can probably guess who the problem elf-child is. Is he going to be evil? I don't know. He doesn't know yet. I want to explore that, his character.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy reading!

Several months after giving birth, Thúriquessë, left her son and her husband to join other souls in an eternal rest in the Halls of Mandos. Only later did Legolas hear about it, as he had been travelling north and deep into the unmapped woods. Airehíthon was there in the market, when he saw him, haggard and thin, his hair matted in a bun, his hands raw with working on a fishing net of large proportions. He looked terribly sad. Legolas likes the sea folk, but they’re a superstitious lot. It rarely happens that an elf woman dies in childbirth but it’s even more unusual to die five months after, exhausted and barely keeping her head up.

The child is a strange one, he hears from the father. He barely eats and cries continuously. The only moment that he’s quiet is while he sleeps. Airehíthon, however, knows of moments when his son’s slumber is difficult when he twists and turns and cries as if in pain. The healers were baffled, their herbal medicine and prayer to Estë herself not being answered. Legolas has written to Elrond, who is dismayed at the news but who soon remembers tales of Fëanor, Finwë’s first son with Míriel Therindë.

It’s the nature of such children to grow upset, longing for their mother. Legolas insists on seeing the child, worried at how Airehíthon left him alone in the house. The elf man doesn't seem too troubled though- "He doesn't want me there," it's all he says. Upon entering the house, his nose crinkles at the acrid smell of curdled milk. Upstairs, on a pile of pillows and blankets, a small child, barely a year old plays with metal spoons and sticks.

“Cullion,” his father calls him in a weary voice. “I am back.”

The child does not turn to greet them, choosing instead to ignore his father as he hits the spoon on the wooden floor until the metal gives in and bends. “He does not like me much,” Airehíthon says casually as if he’s used to such a thing. "When I am in the house for too long, he starts crying and screaming so I go to the market, continue my work there."

“You named him Cullion?” Legolas asks, and to his surprise, the child turns to face them, his head crowned by flame coloured hair.

“Yes, that’s his father name. His mother chose a different one. She only told it to our son.” He looks grieved and he turns back, shuffling to the kitchen. Legolas stares at the small being staring back at him. Mother-names are prophetic. What did your wife wish for her son? Only the little boy may know.

“So… it’s a secret name.” He concludes with a melancholic smile upon his face. Cullion’s eyes burn like fire. His pale face scrunches into a smile, and to Legolas, it appears a tad wicked. He can see a few teeth, half grown. The look in the child's eyes is uncanny. It reminds Legolas of fire, of dark flames and hot steel. The colour is unidentifiable, shifting. From an angle they’re golden but from another, they’re dark, like burnt moss and spilt blood left to dry. He frowns in remembrance. But this is a child, an innocent.

Dark thoughts and memories are buried deeper in a fraction of a second. “Surely you should take him with us in the kitchen. Doesn’t he grow lonely?”

“He doesn’t like my company that much, I told you,” Airehíthon replies in a resigned tone. “The only time he accepts me around is if I read one of your stories or when I sing. Sometimes he looks as if he understands what I’m reading to him. I don’t think it’s because my voice sounds pretty. My company alone does not satisfy him.”

“Of course he understands,” says Legolas, his voice filling with hope as he steps into the room and lowers on his haunches to scoop the child into his arms. The child clings to his neck and he’s sweet and pliant in his embrace.  He's weightless and Legolas sighs in wonder. Airehíthon is surprised as well, at how well-behaved Cullion seems now.

“If I were to carry him like that, he would start to cry and make a ruckus. he must really like you if he lets you hold him.”

And so, Legolas holds Cullion as he trades gold and furs and even a small bow for two carriages of smoked fish for Tirion’s households. He tells him story after story and the child clings to his neck as if he were his father and not Airehíthon.

Airehíthon watches the whole scene dismayed, an unspoken grief clinging to his every fibre. He brings him fruits. They’re ripe and warm from days of travelling by foot. Ripe figs and fragrant yellow fruits, green ones with tiny seeds inside. The rarer they are, the more Legolas insists upon bringing them.

Surprisingly, Cullion eats them straight from his hand and spills the milk and honey that his father brings. He seems extremely fond of the meats Legolas brings. He eats finely cut strings of dried bacon and his eyes seem like the dark fires as he swallows after a brief chew with his few teeth. Legolas brings more and more books and one day he brings his own recounts of the War of the Ring. They speak in Sindarin and Cullion watches them attentively when he doesn’t play with the household’s metal objects.

Sometimes, it seems to Legolas, the elfling understands everything they talk about and quite often, he’s caught those unsettling eyes watching him attentively.

 

When he turned fifteen, his father taught him how to fish. It wasn't something Cullion would have wanted to do forever, though. He was more fond of the song of the hammer and anvil on a metallic plate, subdued into shape, colour and texture. The song of creation made him shiver and he took great pleasure in working on rather insignificant, formless materials and his very soul soared as they were wrought into glorious things.

 The boy liked the hotness of the forge, the minutious and diligent polishing of silver and gems,  he liked fire over water, metal over the earth, blades that could bring death to verdant gardens. 

  
Alas, his father never had a garden. Too poor and meaningless a life. He spread his nets into the ocean and he always smelled of fish. He made a fire, sharpened a stake and cleaned the fish with a small, rudimentary knife, then burned its skin to a black crisp.

  
The father wasn't that young but he had little knowledge of life and what it entailed. He didn't know much but he knew he loved his only son and he had promised on his wife's deathbed he would take care of him, no matter what. So he did.

They talked very little, mostly because the father didn't know what to say. His knowledge was limited and he confessed it to his son, who, in exchange, filled the long hours of labour with his own impressions on what he'd learned from disparate books and treatises. He talked about the stars, their names, the physical world and its really corruptible wonders, the Quenya dialects used by the highborn Elves, the Vanyar and the Noldor, the history of Valinor and that of Arda, now almost deserted by their kind and even stories of the Valar and their Maiar. The father would listen, enraptured.

Sometimes, the son resumed their interactions to polite exchanges in the morning and then he would leave before his father would ask more. He rarely had time for it, since the sea called to him early and he gathered his nets and his fishing instruments by sunrise. Oftentimes, the father was resigned. His sadness had been dulled, his empty hours filled with hard, unimportant work.   
He took great pleasure, however, in seeing that his son was extremely quick to learn, extremely ambitious and dedicated to the welding of metals and shaping of stone or became well learned as he spread words and symbols on a parchment under the candle's light. He was a bright soul, he could tell. Reborn or not, the father loved him and saw in him everything he wished to be, even a blind man could see the potential, the spark that Cullion carried inside. He awed, he outshone others and now they spoke of him.

They didn't speak to him, however.

His teachers interacted with him only when necessary, intimidated by his sharp mind and his peers resorted to bullying.

  
His son was shunned. He grew like that. He was born like that. His copper flame hair, unlike his father's dull orange curls which were always matted from sea water, was unlike any other's. His burning amber eyes unsettled others. His fey beauty and noble face only brought the spite of others. His sharp mind and clever tongue brought hatred and jealousy upon him. Preternatural in his demeanour, he unsettled a superstitious folk that abandoned their kindness for caution and their tolerance for bigotry.

So they have moved away when his son came back one day with a split lip, swollen eye and torn clothes. 

  
Children avoided him and adults whispered behind their backs. Soon, they would ignore the father's work and the abundance they once knew, turned into scarcity. He could barely afford parchment and ink for Cullion and on most days they would eat seaweed or clams and have plain water.

  
Secluded in a small estuary, they lived their lonely days. The father fishing and doing manual labour for both nobles and farmers, the son crafting and selling the work of his smithy hands to strangers at crossroads.  
He learned to read quite late but upon finding his son's talents didn't lie in executing the work of a lowborn Avari, the father sold everything he owned to buy him books. And the son was grateful. The languages, he learned faster than any other elf he knew and the father was happy, so happy and pleased that he wished he could only work harder so he could give him everything.

  
When he grew to be thirty, the son knew many things. Some from the books, some from personal observation. They worked their land now, for it was spring and they managed to farm and fish and hunt. This had been done with the help of the son, whom the father revered for being quite unlike him. 

The man loved him above all else. As he knew little of the world, the son taught him many things, so one day, he came to the son, ecstatic about the news he had received: the son would go to the most renowned city of Valinor and learn from the great smithies the art of forging and study the letters and the lore and the intricacies of philosophy from great masters of knowledge. This was his chance, no matter that he wasn't yet of age. 

He will go to Tirion alone and learn and create and be. Unlike his father, who was reassigned to simply work his entire life for others.

  
"Now go, go and make me proud of you, go and fulfil your destiny, for here, all your cleverness and your nimbleness would be wasted."

And so, he did.

 

It was at the initiative of one of the Greenwood's elves that he was received in the forges. Men and women worked hard, sweat trickling on their backs and pooling at their brows. Their drenched faces scrunched in concentration as they used the force of the hammer. For most of the part, Cullion had been ignored, left to his own devices, yet expected to use the time productively. it was rare that he would daydream for work was demanding and oftentimes he found himself thinking that his body was too weak, although resilient and immortal. 

Weak, yet immortal. What a paradox!

On the second month, as his mind started to sieve through the flux of ideas, he appeared. Pale haired and tall, a handsome face, a lean, strong figure. Princely in demeanour and filled with worldly wisdom. He lived a long life, it appeared, his eyes shining as faceted diamonds with the colours of the storm. Prince Legolas had been a prominent figure in Arda's history. He heard about it later and chastised himself for not knowing much about that. He hated and envied him instantly. He became so passionate about this popular Sinda that soon, he would replace all his thoughts on his projects, focusing them all into one.

For the few weeks, he thought he was losing himself, that it was torture. His body reacted weirdly, with a knot in his stomach and his words stuck in his throat. He felt like choking and he knew it was terror what he started to feel. His thoughts turned to him, always to him. When he was polishing blades, his thoughts strayed to him, when he pounded his hammer, his thoughts deserted any focus on work and decided to envision that damned man again. He couldn't even weld simple metals in a pan of fire that he saw those crystal eyes looking into his very soul. Cullion thought he hated Legolas because he could not despise him. He hated him because he got there first; because he was everything he wished to become.

He came drawing a cart with food and smiled at him as if he knew him. Cullion's eyebrows twisted in suspicion. Then the prince approached him and asked him of all things about his father. This cracked the composed surface that he tried to present for the past weeks and his face filled with murderous rage. Why his father? Wasn't he remarkable enough that he would draw the Prince's attention by himself?

And Legolas smiled innocently at him, cupped his face and tilted his head to examine Cullion from all angles. 

"You look nothing like your mother."

Cullion would not be responsible if the Prince fried his pretty face into the glowing coals. he pushed past him with a grunt and threw the water pitcher against the wall, smashing it to pieces. He even had knowledge of his mother, he even had that. What else would he take away next?

 

The second day, he had been barred from the smithies and was asked to walk the gardens listening to the droning monotone of the Herbs Master, one of the many, not even the best, he suspected. He was given a room into the Library district and was expected to work as a scribe to pay for his living. All Cullion was thinking about was that pretty face with diamond eyes looking critically at him and deeming him improper, stupid, provincial. That and he came up with a fantastic idea to reinforce an alloy he now had no chance to work on. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated as always! I really want to know your opinions on this one!


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